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The Department of Diversity & Inclusive Development is excited to welcome students, staff, and faculty, in celebrating the grand opening of the Spiritual Life and Student Counseling & Wellness Centers this Wednesday morning with a ribbon cutting ceremony. This strategic move is about a student-first approach to care at Multnomah, aimed at increasing both the inclusivity and integration of care and student development on campus. These departments will continue to work towards the holistic development of students at Multnomah and are excited to celebrate the hard work and vision behind the new Centers.

The Student Counseling & Wellness Center is open Monday-Thursday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. offering professional individual, couple, family, and group counseling services. Our mission to support the holistic development of students so other services available are coordination or care, advocacy, and referrals.

In conjunction with other Diversity & Inclusive Development programs, MU Well initiatives are aimed at programs, events, and conferences promoting overall health of Multnomah students and the community at large.

Spiritual formation is a foundational goal of all that we do at MU. This work takes place through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is grounded in the Word of God, and is nurtured and supported in Christian community. At the Spiritual Life Center, we have many opportunities in place to support our students in their decision to grow spiritually, and we hope these programs enhance their personal relationship with our great God.

On Wednesday, August 28th, Multnomah University will host the 2019 Church Rush, formerly known as the Church Fair.

This is an awesome opportunity for students, both new and returning, to learn about local churches and get plugged into a great faith community.

There will be 18 churches from the Portland metro area in attendance. Each church will have a booth with information about their congregations and ministries. Church staff members will be at their booths eager to answer any questions and connect with our students.

We believe in the Church, and we want to encourage all of our students to attend and serve in a local church. But with so many choices, it can be difficult for students to find a connection or a sense of belonging with a local church. Our hope is that through the Church Rush, our students can feel welcomed and connected to a local community before they even walk through the doors on a Sunday morning. Students can learn about service opportunities and ministries that ignite their passions and develop their spiritual life outside of the walls of the university.

Additionally, this event is a great way for MU to build connections with local churches for ongoing partnership and future opportunities for our students.

The event will be held on August 28th, from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in the JCA Student Center.

A recording of Muriel Cook’s Memorial Service is available to view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAICyhZvAwU.. If you would like to share a remembrance with the family, a dedicated email has been set up at Murielcookmemorial@gmail.com.

On Saturday, June 8, 2019, surrounded by family, Muriel L. Cook passed from this world and into the arms of Jesus. Muriel was a beloved member of the Multnomah community, and she will be missed by many.

Muriel was born in Foochow, China to missionary parents, and later served with her husband Norm as a missionary in Taiwan. While in Taiwan, Muriel and Norm welcomed their two daughters, Michele (Shelly) and Milei.

Muriel served Multnomah University and its students, alumni, and employees faithfully as an adjunct faculty member and counselor-at-large from 1984-2013, as well as on a volunteer basis in the years following. Muriel and Norm poured their life and passion into the Multnomah community as conduits for the love and grace of Jesus.

Muriel was a lay counselor for more than 60 years. With her daughter, Shelly Cook Volkhardt, she co-authored Kitchen Table Counseling and taught seminars based on the book for years. She had a deep passion for training Christian women to walk intimately with Jesus and alongside their sisters in the faith. Muriel mentored and guided countless women, men, and couples throughout her life, from students, alumni, missionaries, and those working in ministry. Her impact will not soon be forgotten.

Muriel leaves behind a rich faith legacy that touched the lives of all who knew her, one that will be carried forward by her family: Norm, Glen and Shelly Volkhardt, Scott and Milei Yardley, and her four grandchildren and two great grandchildren. She will be missed, but we know she is at peace with Jesus and we anticipate the day we will see her again in the glory of the Lord.

As part of MU Serve 2019, a group of our students recently traveled to Romania to serve the people of Galati in partnership with Word Made Flesh. To read about the first part of their journey, check out this blog post.

Over twenty years ago, Word Made Flesh (WMF) began working in Galati, Romania to care for people experiencing poverty and homelessness. David Chronic, the Director of Operations for WMF, spends time with the children on the streets in Galati, helping them find food and spending nights on the street with them. It’s this kind of service that represents the heart of the WMF vision.

WMF has worked tirelessly to ensure that children in Galati are cared for. The Valley Community Center, located in Galati, is a drop-in center built by WMF that supports over 40 children in their education and overall wellbeing. The Valley helps children with homework and personal hygiene, provides hot meals, and allows them a safe place to play. WMF’s work at The Valley and on the streets is helping to turn the tide and overcome the cycle of poverty in Galati. “This is why we come and serve,” writes MU campus pastor Rich Ward. “To join in the work of loving God and loving people.”

WMF has continued to grow and develop ways to not only care for the kids on the streets, but to help break the cycle of poverty. The services provided at The Valley helps 30-50 children stay in school. It is this holistic and foundational approach to ministry that makes WMF stand out, and we wanted our students to see how impactful this approach to ministry is.

One way that WMF is attempting to break cycles of poverty is through a vocational training program for mothers in the community called Ashira Workshop. The program teaches women sewing skills that they then use to produce bags. Gina, a recent graduate of the program, described the feeling of joy she had when she first sat down at a sewing machine. She couldn’t stop smiling. She would feed a few inches of fabric under the needle, pause, look at Harper, a WMF staff member who oversees the workshop, and smile ear to ear. The sewing lesson became an important part of Gina’s routine, as she was provided a chance to learn a new skill, but it was also a time to rest and take a break from the constant stress of life as a single mom in the Galati valley. At night, Gina would go over the steps of making bags in her head to relax and help herself fall asleep.

Gina’s daughter went with her to every sewing lesson and the weekly mom’s group. Her daughter always sat right next to her, watching attentively as she slowly constructed something beautiful from a pile of scraps. These days, she helps with some of the pinning. Items made by the women ofAshira Workshop are available for purchase on Etsy.

Theseare the types of ministries that we want to continue to show our students here at MU. We want to open their eyes to communities that areaffected by poverty and teach them, through Scripture and partnership with great organizations like WMF, how we can serve people and break cycles of poverty.

Here are some pictures of the Word Made Flesh center, the Ashira Workshop, and our MU Serve 2019 team:

For many of us at Multnomah University, the arrival of summer is often a period of renewal. As spring comes to a close and the trees and grasses return to their familiar deep green color, so do we find ourselves returning to our favorite summer activities: reconnecting with old friends, resting, and growing in new ways. The onset of the summer season is a perfect opportunity to settle into a rhythm and reconnect with God and the people and things you love, so we’re starting a new blog series featuring summer reading lists recommended by our staff and faculty.* These reading lists aren’t just for Multnomah students; they’re for staff, faculty, parents, alumni, and anyone else looking for a good book to read this summer. We’re starting off the series with a list compiled by our beloved professor of English, Dr. Doug Schaak. On his list, you’ll find autobiographies and memoirs, short story collections, poetry, plays, and novels. We asked Dr. Schaak for tips on reading during the summer, and this is what he shared:

Choose one book you are dying to read and read it strictly for pleasure.

Choose one book that makes you uncomfortable and commit to finishing it.

Pay attention to something you usually don’t focus on. For example, instead of looking for themes or plot or character development or setting, focus on sentence length or sentence structure, vocabulary, point of view, use of dialogue, or paragraph development.

Read for longer periods than you do during the school year. If you normally read for less than thirty minutes in one sitting, extend that time frame to sixty or ninety minutes.

Read in a different environment.

Listen to the author. Try to get a feel for the person behind the writing.

Write a leisurely response to something you read. Send it to a friend or just keep it to yourself.

If the author is still living, write him or her a note. One student of ours did so a few years ago and received a handwritten response from Ursula K. Le Guin.

Read like you did when you were ten years old: openly, expectantly, and with wonder, remembering how strange it is that words written on a page can have such an impact on a life.

Here are Dr. Schaak’s reading recommendations:

Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio

Saul Bellow, Henderson the Rain King

Truman Capote, In Cold Blood

Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop

Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard

Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent

Douglas Coupland, Generation X

E.L. Doctorow, Ragtime

Charles Dickens, Hard Times

George Eliot, Middlemarch

William Faulkner, Light in August

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon

Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles

Seamus Heaney, The Haw Lantern

Henrik Ibsen, Hedda Gabler

James Joyce, Dubliners

Franz Kafka, The Trial

William Kennedy, Ironweed

Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

Sir Thomas Malory, King Arthur and His Knights

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

Flannery O’Connor, Three

Eugene O’Neill, Long Day’s Journey into Night

Walker Percy, The Moviegoer

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Henry David Thoreau, Walden, or Life in the Woods

Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons

Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

Gerald Vizenor, The Heirs of Columbus

Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five

Alice Walker, The Color Purple

Elie Wiesel, Night

August Wilson, Fences

Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

Richard Wright, Native Son

*The literature on this list does not directly reflect the views of Multnomah University.

Multnomah University students, along with students from George Fox University, are currently serving in Romania as part of our 2019 MU Serve trip. These trips are designed for students to step into the world and partner with active mission organizations. It is our hope that through these trips, our students will not only learn about themselves and grow as people, but also experience how God is present and working in other parts of the world. In Romania specifically, Word Made Flesh has been serving the poor and supporting the people of the community tangibly for 20+ years. They are doing precisely what Christ has called us to do in His name.

As Americans, we tend to live within the confines of our comfort, but this summer, 10 students chose to give up two weeks of their summers to serve in Galati, Romania. Last week, after three flights, two bus rides, and one train journey, our team reached their destination. In partnership with Word Made Flesh, these students have had the opportunity to build relationships with children and serve the community center where this organization is a central beacon of light for the entire community.

At the center, educators help students from kindergarten to 12th grade with homework and creative art projects. Social workers make home visits, and therapists provide play therapy to care for community members and to prevent and help break the cycle of poverty in families that suffer from a flawed system. The center also has two amazing cooks that provide every child with a home-cooked and nutritious meal. These staff members help provide these children with holistic development that benefits them both within the doors of the center and in their communities.

Our incredible team of students has partnered with the community center staff in helping with service projects and playing games with the children. Below are some photos of the team’s first few days in Romania. Please partner with us as we continue to pray for these students for the duration of their trip as well as the people of this community and the work of Word Made Flesh. Check back into the Multnomah University blog for more about the trip and the ways in which our students were able to see God at work in Romania.